


Where we will we'll roam

by ElisAttack



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 18th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Blood and Violence, M/M, Pirate Derek Hale, Pirates, Sailors and their mythology, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, black sails au, the immensity and unknowness that is the ocean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 07:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10692792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: Stiles sits at the mess table, leaning back against it so casually as he often would when he was still alive.  His hair, saturated with water, is still bleached blonde at the tips from years of hard labour in the fields of the hot West Indies.  His fingers tap on the grained wood, long, bony, and tanned brown, knuckles pronounced and tips calloused.  Oh how Derek loved to feel those fingers wrapped around his arms, stroking down his neck, running across his lips.Stiles smiles at Derek and a trail of blood runs down his cheek.  His smile is so beautiful, so captivating, Derek almost doesn’t notice the hole in his head.Or the one where Derek is a pirate captain, but he wasn't always.





	Where we will we'll roam

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has some dark themes, but if I tag them, they'll spoil the story, if you feel you might be triggered by anything, check the endnotes.
> 
> Title from Hans Zimmer's Hoist the Colours

 

Derek stands in a solitary beam of light, flushing through from the iron grill above.  His ship rolls on the ocean, wind catching the sails, pushing it forward on course.  Beams creak and groan with strain.  Salted water drips from the ragged wood onto the deck, coating it in a thin layer of white crystals.  

He is meant to be on the weather deck, consulting with his quartermaster, yet he cannot move, locked in place by what he sees.

Stiles sits at the mess table, leaning back against it so casually as he often would when he was still alive.  His hair, saturated with water, is still bleached blonde at the tips from years of hard labour in the fields of the hot West Indies.  His fingers tap on the grained wood, long, bony, and tanned brown, knuckles pronounced and tips calloused.  Oh how Derek loved to feel those fingers wrapped around his arms, stroking down his neck, running across his lips.     

Stiles smiles at Derek and a trail of blood runs down his cheek.  His smile is so beautiful, so captivating, Derek almost doesn’t notice the hole in his head.

 _Derek_ , Stiles says pleasantly, _come sit with me_.

“How…”  Derek gapes, lost for words.  He saw Stiles go overboard himself, saw the gun that killed him.  Derek had personally ran through the privateer who’d done it.  Tossing his body over, after his love’s.

Stiles’ smile creaks, and a tear runs down his cheek, mixing with blood.  Sweat, blood, and tears, it coats the decks of his ship and his men.  Once, it covered his lover, and now it does so again.

 _It seems good ole Davy Jones doesn’t want me_ .  Stiles says.   _I told you I could repel the devil himself with my incessant talking_.

Derek feels a lump form in his throat.  He swallows it down, but when he speaks his voice is hoarse.  “I love it when you talk with me.”

 _When I talk at you, you mean?_  Stiles smirks, rising to his feet.  Derek blinks and Stiles no longer looks as his did at the moment of his death.  Instead he wears English garb—powdered wig draped on his head, a fine blue satin coat, shiny shoes with polished buckles.  A proper gentleman, a politician.  The noble grandson of a prominent lord and governor.

He looks the way he did the day they met.

 _Are you reminiscing on what I think you are?_  Stiles asks, eyes sparkling as he walks towards Derek across the deck, shoes clicking with every step.  He looks so out of place, so perfect—Derek knows he’s hallucinating, and yet dust stirs in the air around his wake.

 _Do you remember when the admiral introduced us?_  Stiles asks, stopping a mere foot away from him.   _When you saw me you sputtered and muttered answers to the questions I asked you, not even looking me in the eye.  I thought you hated me.  It was only months later when I had you in my bed that you revealed the truth._

“I thought you were so beautiful, I was scared I might blurt it out and ruin everything.”  Derek breathes.  Reaching forward, he runs a finger along a powdered curl.  The first time he saw Stiles without his wig was a mere month after they had met.  Stiles had been examining the port on behalf of his father, and the admiral had sent Derek to help him.  It was still early in their friendship, but there was an easiness between them that Derek had never felt with anyone before.  

They were debating their views on the laws condemning pirates when the skies opened and rain began falling in a downpour.  They had rushed for the cover of Stiles’ carriage, but it was too late.  They were soaked through.

 _You helped me into the carriage first_ .  Stiles says, bringing him out of his thoughts.   _I remember thinking that you were more of a gentleman than I could ever be.  But when I pulled that cursed bird’s nest of a wig off my head, and you did nothing but stare at me, water dripping off your nose like a fool, I thought a gentleman could never give himself away so easily._  Stiles smiles fondly.

Derek chuckles at the memory.  “I could not help but wonder why you were wearing a wig when every hair on your head was still attached.”  Derek pauses, glances down at his hands in unfounded embarrassment, even though they are long past such insecurities.  “And, I thought you looked beautiful, wet and disheveled.”   

Derek looks up and Stiles is soaked through.  His fine linen shirt clings to his form, highlighting the dark hair on his chest.  His brown hair sticks in all directions.  His eyes glisten in amusement.  Derek wonders if all pirates who have committed the evils he has are tortured in this way.

Stiles shakes his head.   _You’re special, my love.  You’ve always been special._

Derek clenches his fists to his side, eyes filling with unshed wetness. “I’ve been lost without you.”

 _You were lost long before you lost me_ .  Stiles says quietly, taking a step back from Derek.   _You lost your way when you left your position behind.  When you left me for dead in that cursed hospital._

“I wanted to make a name for myself.  Establish myself then come back for you, so we could have a life together far from England.  They accept our sin in this place,”  Derek pleads, reaching out for Stiles, but he is too quick for Derek to catch—just like when he fell from Derek’s ship into the churning waters below.  Stiles doges his grasp, pacing the deck, sodden shoes squeaking loudly in the quiet.

_How has that decision worked for you?_

“That’s unfair, I only wanted the best for the both of us, you know that.”

_You were a lieutenant, you had position—_

“I didn’t have you!”  Derek exclaims to an empty hold, all he can hear is the rolling slap of the waves against the hull.  Stiles is gone.  

Perhaps he was never there to begin with.

***

 _Can you not see how unfair you were?_  Stiles asks continuing their conversation after a mere day has past, Derek was beginning to think he imagined the whole affair.

Derek groans, rolling over on his bunk.  His mind has picked the most inopportune moment to harass him so cruelly.

 _Because you’re attacking a merchant ship on the morrow?_  Stiles smacks his lips disapprovingly.   _I see, you wish to be well rested?_

“Leave me be,”  Derek begs.  “Cannot your ghost rest?”

 _My dearest love, I’m no ghost._  Stiles says as Derek feels a warm finger run across his forehead, pushing a strand of hair away from his brow.  Derek blinks his eyes open, but finds nothing but moonlight streaming through the window, casting light upon the covers.

“Have I invented you then?  Is this how I drive myself insane?”

Derek feels lips press to his ear, the exhalation of breath.   _Can you invent the way I touch you, hold you?_  

As if to exemplify his point, Stiles’ arms wrap around his torso.  A finger runs down the middle of his chest, down his breastbone, it moves a little to the left and begins to count his ribs.

_Have you not been eating, my love?_

Derek lets out a choked sob, muffled into his pillow.  “How can I?”

 _I’m not dead, you know this,_ Stiles whispers in his ear, yet Derek still cannot see him.

“You’re not alive, either.”

A pause, then Stiles says, _no, I’m not, I suppose._

“Yet you haunt me.”

 _You don’t want me gone, I know you, Derek.  Me, here as I am, you don’t fear this.  You fear having me, then losing me again_.

“You know this, but you still harm me so,”  Derek squeezes his eyes shut, but he still feels Stiles’ body against his back.

 _I want to be a little selfish_ .  Derek feels Stiles press a kiss to his neck.   _Just this once_.  

Stiles’ hand rests on his belly, a warm, familiar weight in the cold, dead night.  He stares out into the darkness of his cabin, unable to fall asleep, even with Stiles’ even breaths on his neck.  He whispers into the quiet, “I just want you here.”

_Am I not here, lover?_

***

Derek fires his pistol and the gunpowder ignites, smoke exploding in a cloud as lead flies out of the barrel into its intended target.  The merchant goes down with a scream.  

He should have surrendered the ship peacefully, then no one would have died.

Men fall around him, shrapnel and gore scattered across the deck, as Derek cuts his way through.  He used to grow faint at the sight of blood.  Look at him now.

“Captain!”  His quartermaster calls, heaving as he clutches at a wound on his arm.  “The captain of this ship has barred himself in his quarters.”

Stiles’ breath catches in his ear, like he’s standing right beside Derek, even though no one’s there.  

_What will you do, Derek, will you be merciful?_

“We don’t take prisoners, Mr. Boyd,”  Derek says, voice cold as ice.  “Ransoming is a messy business.  Shoot through the door until it opens, or until you hit something.”

 _Is mercy that difficult for you?_ Stiles asks.

Derek stands on the quarter deck as his men heave the dead into the ocean.  His dead men get sewn in their hammocks, sent over the side with prayers.  His enemies get nothing.  His crew will take the gold and fine cloth from the holds, then set the merchant ship on fire.

_And after that?_

“I sell the goods at Port Royal, pay my crew, then let them rest until we catch news of another ship, ripe for the taking.”

The wind whistles, bringing with it the scent of death and salt.   _Remember when you found me on that plantation?_

“How could I forget?”  Derek says.  He had thought Stiles dead for years until he caught wind of a rumour that Bedlam was shipping its noble-born sodomites to the West Indies to work beside the slaves.  He had gone to see, hope in his heart, even though he had received a letter, years ago telling him that Stiles had taken his own life in the hospital.

_I was covered in years worth of dirt, hair long to my shoulders, beard unkempt, but you still recognized me._

“I could never forget you.”  Derek says as his men chuck bottles of rum filled with incendiary liquid at the condemned merchant ship.  It goes up in flame, burning bright.  The smoke will draw attention to any navy frigate around.  They must be gone by then.  “I dreamt of you every night, missing you dearly.”

_You bought me from the foreman—_

“I rescued you,”  Derek corrects.

 _You bought me_ , Stiles repeats, _and brought me upon your ship and made me watch as you demonstrated the evil you had fallen to while I was gone.  When I wanted to return to land, you wouldn’t let me leave._

“It wasn’t safe for you,”  Derek placates, “You might have been caught and returned to the plantation.”

_I died on your ship.  I would have lived on land._

The sails catch, and they move from the burning ship, Derek watches as it disappears into the distance.

_I love you, Derek, but I do not love what you have become._

“England must pay for what it has done to you—”

_Must we pay, as well?_

***

Derek sits in a tavern at Port Royal, a bottle of rum in hand as Boyd sits across him him, counting their coin, writing in the ship’s ledger.  Derek watches the quill run across the paper, loops and lines, wet ink glistening in the candlelight.  

“Captain?”

“Yes, Mr. Boyd?”

“Sir, it seems we have turned a substantial profit this term.  What would you like to do with the surplus?”

Derek takes a swig from the bottle.  “The ship must be careened soon, so set half aside for supplies—pork, water, whores.  Divide the other half among the men.”

“Very good, sir.”  Boyd nods, returning to the records.

 _What, nothing for you?_  Derek looks towards Stiles’ voice.  He leans against a nearby bannister, white shirt gaping open at the neck, sword and gun at his waist, hair tied back in a tail.  He looks as he did the first few months on Derek’s ship, tanned and beautiful.

“I will return shortly, Mr. Boyd.”

Derek walks over to where Stiles stands, legs spread apart, waiting for him to step between them, where he belongs.  Derek raises a hand to Stiles’ face, caressing his strong jaw, gazing at where the burnt skin peels from his nose.  He wants to kiss it and watch Stiles hiss in pain.

 _Do you like what you see?_  Stiles asks coyly, placing his hands on Derek’s hips, fingers splayed wide over his ass.

“I will always want you.”  Derek leans closer capturing Stiles’ lips in a kiss.

_Promises, promises._

Stiles pulls him up the stairs, a finger tucked into the front of his trousers. Fire burns bright in his eyes, reminding Derek of the first time they slept together.  He had felt so young back then, so inexperienced, but he had loved Stiles with every beat of his heart.  

Stiles had kissed him in the carriage ride after they had left parliament.  After Derek had stood up for him and offered his public support for Stiles’ proposal to end piracy in the west indies by offering pardons to all pirates.  

_We horrified my grandfather, I could see him fanning himself at how I was shaming the family.  My parents must have been rolling in their graves._

Derek breaks a kiss to shake his head and say, “They would have been proud of you.”

Stiles snorts.

“No, truly.  They would.  You were an excellent politician.  It was unfortunate your grandfather could not see that beyond what we had.”  Derek wraps a hand around Stiles’ wrist, holding on just a little too tight, until his bones grind together.  Stiles says nothing about it and doesn’t pull away.  “I ruined you.”  Derek admits.

 _I kissed you first._  Stiles says easily.

And what a kiss it was.  They had sat in silence through the entire carriage ride, Derek staring over Stiles’ shoulder.  Angry, because his words at parliament were unable to change the mind of a single man—that piracy would still be condemnable by death.  Sad, because Stiles’ hard work would come to nothing.  

He had startled at the feeling of a finger on his chin.  Shifting his eyes over, he had found Stiles looking at him intensely.  He had opened his mouth to apologize, but instead found soft, warm lips against his, stopping his thoughts in their tracks.  He had froze, until Stiles pulled away, his brow furrowed and an apology on the tip of his tongue.  Derek had stopped the apology by leaning back in and capturing Stiles’ mouth in a searing kiss.

Stiles had invited him into his home, into his bed, and Derek had not looked back.

Stiles pulls him into the room Derek rented, shutting the door behind them.  The balcony door is spread wide open and Derek hears the murmuring of the night, the giggles of whores, and the drunken singing of men floating through into the room.  Stiles walks to the balcony, leaning against the railing, waiting for Derek to join him.

_Do you ever wish to return to England?_

“Never,”  Derek says without hesitation.  The only way he would ever return to that country is bound in shackles, headed to his hanging.

 _I wanted to end piracy, once upon a time._  Stiles sighs.   _Yet here you are, terrorising the ocean and shredding my dreams to pieces._

“I wanted that too, once upon a time.”  Derek admits, pressing up close behind Stiles, peppering soft, fleeting kisses against his neck.

_Not anymore?_

Derek rests his forehead against the back of Stiles’ head.  “Not after your grandfather hired men to storm our home, to rip you from our bed and my arms.  Never again, not after that.  England can burn in hell for all I care.”

 _They told me I would burn in hellfire for all eternity for loving you, did you know that?_  Derek does not need to ask to understand who they are.

“I thought they would do worse.”

 _They did, but I do not wish to speak of it._  Stiles turns around to face him, his eyes appear to shine black in the blue, cold night.   _Take me to bed._

Derek does.

***

Derek stands at the head of the quarter deck, scope to his eye, scouting the coast for a suitable bank to careen the ship.  Stiles stands beside him, hands wrapped around the spokes of the wheel, singing a jaunty tune about a sailor and his lover that he must have picked up on the plantation.  It is too salacious for him to have learned it during his formal education in England.

“The trees look strong over yonder, Captain?”  Boyd suggests, pointing starboard to a stretch of white sand dominated by tall, study palms.

Derek nods, and gives the order.  Boyd calls to the men, ordering them to position.  Stiles steps out of the way, just before Boyd goes to take the wheel.  Derek wonders what would have happened if he had stayed still—would Boyd have passed through him, or would they have collided?

_You’ll never know, my love.  Isn’t that for the best?_

Perhaps it is.

With ropes tied taught to the strongest trees and the ship tipped on her side, Derek sits in a tent, behind his writing desk, going over the intelligence his informants have sold to him—from ship schedules to ledgers—planning their next prize.

His crew scrape barnacles and mussels from the hull, the noises of their work and raucous laughter sound throughout the beach.  The stench of sizzling pork and boiling wood tar fills the air.  

His dips his quill into the inkwell, scratching numbers and words onto a sheet of paper—calculations for their route.

 _You’re already primed to take another prize,_ Stiles observes, sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, _So hungry you are for wealth._

“It is not gold I seek, you know this.”

 _Tell that to your crew.  Imagine what they would do if they knew their great captain, who has brought them so much wealth, is only pirating to start a war with England,_ Stiles says, mockery in his tone.   _Are you so thirsty to die at sea, you would take all these men with you?_

“They can make their own decisions, they do not need you to mother them,”  Derek says without looking up from his calculations.

 _Alas, if I do not mother them, who will?_ A giggle comes from a nearby tent.   _Perhaps the prostitutes you have hired?_

Derek snorts, shaking his head in amusement.

_And what about you, would you not partake in that which you have bought?_

Derek looks up sharply, eyes narrowing.  “I have always stayed faithful to you, even when I thought you dead.  You can chide me over my faults, my undoings, but that was never one of them.  It was never a hardship to love only you.”

Stiles sighs.   _Mayhaps you should have left me on that plantation and found another to love.  Your heart might not be so cold then._

“Do not even jest,”  Derek dismisses, looking back to his work, “I am how I am, and this is how it is.”

The next time Derek glances up, Stiles is gone from his chair.  He dips his quill into the well and continues.

***

The storm rages.  Wind beats the sails violently, whipping the canvas back and forth until the sound booms through the maelstrom, drowning out the rushing of the crew.  Waves batter the ship, pushing it back and forth, rolling under and above the waves.  

Derek’s soaked through to his bones.  He grips tight a rope in his hands, the rough sisal tears stinging cuts into his flesh, but he cannot let go.  They will lose a sail if he does.

A crashing jet of water flushes across the deck, taking a man with it to the depths of the ocean.  His screams echo in Derek’s ears.

_Let go, Derek._

Derek hisses, but he stays strong, even as he is pulled forward.  Even as he hears the deafening snap of the foremast.  The splintered wood flies away into the storm, taking with it the jib sails.

Derek screams for someone to take the wheel, but he cannot be heard over the storm.

_You will die tonight if you do not let go._

Derek hangs on tight, but suddenly Stiles is there, right at his side—beautiful, without a single hair out of place.  He shoves both hands against Derek’s shoulders and he falls back, crashing to the deck below.  He thumps his head, hard, and stars shine in his vision.  

Blackness creeps in on him as he dazedly watches one of his men grab at the rope that was abandoned, struggling with it as he was.  

A sound like thunder from hell echoes across the ship as the main mast gives way.  The rope surges forward and the man is pulled at lightning speed from the deck and flung into the dark spell.

Derek closes his eyes and sees nothing.

***

He wakes to the gentle beating of waves on sand.  He feels himself floating in the shallows, the water warm under his fingers.  Derek cannot believe he is still alive.

_Wake before the sharks come, I can only keep them away for so long._

Derek opens his eyes to the face of his lover, grim with his brow furrowed in worry, haloed by the sun.  Derek lies on a sandy white beach, half submerged in the shallow water, half on shore.  He sits up, pulling himself fully out of the swell.

He lifts his arms to his chest, checking that everything is as it should be. Save for a steadily bleeding head wound and the cuts on his hands, he is in sound health.

_Yes, all your limbs are still attached, and so long as we staunch the head wound, you won’t bleed out._

Derek sits in silence as Stiles rips a sleeve off his shirt and tears it into strips, he ties a few around Derek’s forehead and wraps some around his palms.

“My crew?”  Derek asks once Stiles has finished.  Stiles says nothing, just bundles the unused cloth together and places it to the side on a piece of driftwood.  A plank from his ship.  “Stiles,”  Derek demands, “What happened to my crew?”

 _I don’t know, I didn’t look for them, I stayed with you._  Stiles says, his voice frustrated.

A lump forms in Derek’s throat.  “And my ship?”

Stiles shakes his head.

Derek roars.  He rages.  He climbs to his feet and grabs at the pieces of his life, pieces of his ship, and throws them from him in anger.  He kicks at the sand, but it does nothing to dispel his grief.  

And then he turns on Stiles.

“Why didn’t you do anything!”  He bellows, stomping forward to where Stiles still kneels in the sand, looking at Derek with nothing but a frightening emptiness in his eyes.  “Why did you make me let go?  I could have saved us if had just held fast longer!”

Stiles huffs.   _Because you are more than just one man, is that right, Derek?  You are stronger than the ocean itself?_

Derek clenches his jaw, pointing an accusing finger at Stiles.  “If only I had not been distracted by your wiles, my men would still be alive.”

Stiles throws his head back, laughing as he rolls his eyes.   _Of course it is my fault you decided to go after this prize when I repeatedly warned you against the dangers of piracy._  He stands, brushing sand off his trousers as nonchalant as ever.

Derek hates him with a fiery passion.

He whips around, afraid to even look at Stiles, lest he do something he would regret.  He stares at the jungle before him—this desert island he is stuck on without any hope of escape.  Stretching down the coast, he sees the bones of his ship lying about—torn sails and splintered wood.  The grief strikes him fast and hard.  

Hot, salty tears stream unhindered down his cheeks.

_My oh my, I don’t think he has ever cried this hard for me._

A stray thought comes to him, and he cannot help but voice it, even though he knows there’s no going back from it.  

“What did you mean?”  Derek voice cracks, he clears his throat and tries again.  “What did you mean when you said I would die if I didn’t let go?”  He turns back to Stiles, and finds him standing with his arms crossed across his chest, a brow quirked, like what Derek’s asking is nothing to him.

 _I meant exactly what I said_ , He says easily like his words aren’t breaking Derek’s heart.

“You knew the storm was coming.”  Derek says quietly.

A gentle wind blows across the island, the palms whisper, the sand shifts.  

_Of course I did._

Tears stream down Derek’s cheeks.  “What do you mean by that?”  He asks, a sour taste forming in his mouth at what is about to be revealed.  “Who are you?”  Derek whispers.

Stiles smiles.   _I am the ocean._

Derek finds himself running forward before he even knows what he’s doing.  He rushes Stiles and pushes him down.  They tumble forward, towards the water, landing in a tide pool.  Their splashing startles a nearby crab and it scurries off quickly.

He’s not thinking straight, Derek knows this, and still he pushes Stiles into the water.  Pushes his head beneath the surface.  Stiles stares calmly back, even as Derek wraps his arms around his neck, throttling the life from him.  Bubbles float to the surface as Stiles’ lungs slowly fill with water.  As he drowns.  

Derek is numb to it all.  He is empty and cannot feel a thing.  He stares into Stiles’ eyes, separated as they are by a layer of water, he stares and watches his eyes, waiting for them to close, for him to fade away again.  For Stiles to at last leave him in peace.

Stiles stares back, and Derek feels his pulse thump steady, unfaltering.  

They stay like that for what feels like eternity until Derek lets go, and Stiles slowly comes to the surface.  

They sit together in the shallows.  Derek stares down at his hands like he cannot believe what he tried to do.  Stiles coughs water from his lungs and rubs the salt from his eyes, pushing his wet hair from his forehead.

 _Are you satisfied?_  Stiles asks, voice empty.

Derek cannot find his words.

Stiles snorts.   _Of course you cannot speak,_ he says vehemently, dripping with acid.   _Poor lost boy, look how he resorts to violence when words fail him.  You are not the man I fell in love with._

“What are you?”  Derek says at last.

Stiles glares at him.

“You’re not Stiles.”

Stiles shoulders shake, he places a hand over his eyes, nails digging sharp grooves into his skin.  He laughs shortly, and harshly.

 _The ocean gave you a gift, Derek.  It returned me to you._ Stiles removes his hand and his eyes are as cold as ice. _I asked that you halt your murder spree in my name, or you would face the consequences.  You have faced them.  You have taken the gift given to you, and squandered it.  There is nothing I can do for you.  There is nothing I want to do for you._

Stiles disappears, and it’s like he was never there.

Derek sits in the shallows for a while longer, before he climbs to his feet.  He starts to walk, heading down the beach.  Hopefully he will find someone, anyone.  He will gather all the survivors together, and they will build a raft.  They will study the stars and figure out where they are before setting sail for the nearest port.  Derek will use his influence to charter a ship.  He will hire men.  Together they will take another prize.

And the cycle will continue, until the day he dies at sea, or he is captured by England and strung up, a noose tight around his neck.

He will have his revenge.  Nothing will get in his way.

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for domestic violence, a historical homophobic slur, lots of blood, and a very unhappy ending.


End file.
